So...

I'm fat. But if you know me, you probably already knew that. And my dearest friends don't care. They love me no matter what I look like. And for that, I'm grateful.

But I'm tired of being fat, and I'm going to do something about it. I'm going to do something about it on my terms. For me. Not for anyone else. For me.

Don't worry, this isn't going to become one of those "join me in my journey to a healthier me" blogs. That shit requires effort.

Okay, maybe I will blog about it every now and then. But let's be honest - I haven't blogged much about anything lately. So you don't have much to worry about.

I'm going to join Weight Watchers - there's a meeting each week at my workplace - a meeting I found out is attended by several colleagues I know and trust and respect. And our health insurance will reimburse 25% of the cost provided I make it to 11 out of 12 weigh-ins over a 12 week period.

What caused me to finally do something about this? Well, I have a list of my motivations:

- Tired of having to go to fat people stores to buy my clothes. Those places are expensive, and as of late, the employees are getting to be real shitheads. They've got a corner on the market. I don't want to be a part of that market anymore. I want to shop at Old Navy again.
- I'm sick of what I see in the mirror, so I'm going to change it.
- I have so little energy for anything it's ridiculous.
- I want to have women be interested in me again. I'm sick of having women look at me and have zero interest whatsoever because of my physical appearance. I want to give them the opportunity to have no interest in me because I'm a reprehensible human being. You know - the old-fashioned way. All kidding aside, though, I do have some women who are interested in me, but they're all my size. And while they may find that attractive, I don't want someone to be attracted to a version of myself that I really don't like. At all.
- Oh yeah, that too - I don't like that about myself. I know I'm a good person and all, but I just don't like being overweight. If you've been there, you know what I'm talking about.

So yeah. It's time to do something, damn it.

I realize it's going to be really, really difficult. I'm going to screw up. That's okay. But as long as I'm making a genuine effort to change myself and my lifestyle, and I'm seeking outside help in doing it, I can at least say I'm taking action, which is better than nothing.

I did this once before - when I was about 10 years old. My parents made me go to Weight Watchers each week. I lost some weight, but I was a kid. I didn't know what was going on. And I didn't have the self-awareness to make the decision to go on my own. And let's be honest here for a minute - imagine being a 10 year old boy in a Weight Watchers meeting full of middle-aged women. How the hell did my parents think that would help me at all? Every time I shared anything at these meetings, the middle aged women got all weepy.

Oh, and I assure you that when you're 10 years old, and it gets out that you go to Weight Watchers meetings (because several of your classmates' mothers are in the meetings as well) your peers will not greet this news with respect and understanding. No, they will continue to tease you, but this time they will do so with greater frequency and enthusiasm than ever before. So yeah, clearly THAT was going to work out for me.

When I was 12 I did another program - again, the decision of my parents - at a local pediatric hospital. I wasn't really that overweight, looking back at it. There were kids in the program who weighed 300 lbs. and were the same age as me.

And I didn't really get anything out of the program - especially when my parents (who had to attend with me) would take me out to eat at Imo's on the way home.



People in this program kept telling me I needed to exercise. I needed to eat more nutritious stuff. A lot of grown ups spent a lot of time talking at me. Not many people really listened to me. And, again, I'm not sure I had the self-awareness necessary to realize that kids made fun of me because I was overweight, and that I could make that stop by losing weight, AND that I was the one who had to do something about it. That nobody else could do it for me. I mean, sure, I was told all of those things at various points in time, and I figured it out on my own later on, but for some reason it took until this weekend for me to finally decide to do something about it.

Okay, maybe this is turning into a bit of a weight loss blog already. So I'll shut up now. Thankfully I've got nearly 1,000 other posts to balance things out a bit.